Current Affairs

Dear friends,

I hope everyone is doing OK, during this extraordinarily complex and painful time.

I’ve been struggling to write this latest update for the last several weeks, and it is not getting any easier. Last week San Quentin reported its first confirmed cases of COVID-19, apparently the result of transferring people from the California Institution for Men, in an attempt to shield them from the massive outbreak there. For statistical details of the current situation across the state, see the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation’s website, which now lists numbers of cases, people tested, and deaths.

What the numbers of course cannot convey is the terror of this situation for people inside and those who love them. Watching the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases climb while it gradually spreads to more prisons is like watching a fire jump from one building to the next, with tens of thousands of people trapped inside. A handful of passersby see what’s happening; some stand and watch; most just walk by.

Right now, hundreds of thousands of incarcerated people are confronting the threat of COVID-19 in squalid, medically unsafe prison cells and dormitories; with inadequate nutritious food, personal protective equipment, hygiene articles, educational materials, accurate scientific information about the virus, or current news. Their ability to communicate with loved ones, about whose physical health or economic situation they may be deeply worried, is severely limited. They are also justifiably terrified. Some, especially those who are already in ill health or elderly, are expecting to die.

Yet in spite of the formidable advocacy work being done for the release of the medically vulnerable and/or elderly, scant resources are being invested in even the most basic needs of those who remain inside. In the midst of the current explosion of awareness, outrage and solidarity, when literally the entire world’s attention is focused specifically on racist state violence and neglect, the normalized brutality and negligence of conditions inside the U.S. prison system remain of little interest to most Americans.

It’s not hard to understand why people seeking to address the crisis of COVID-19 in prisons would focus on trying to remove people from that danger. Yet most of us would agree that even the most herculean efforts are unlikely to bring about the release of more than 10% of the population. It would thus seem (to put it mildly) logical to also invest resources in the most immediate health and safety needs of both prisoners and staff. Yet most of the largest criminal justice advocacy and philanthropy organizations remain almost entirely focused on the cause of releases, rather than also addressing conditions inside.

The most pressing issues right now relate specifically to supplies, facilities management, and operational policy: Procuring adequate personal protective equipment, cleaning supplies, healthy food and water; repairing or replacing ventilation systems; overhauling the prison TV systems; installing adequate IT infrastructure to support technology-based delivery of education, visiting, medical care, psychological services, and recreational activities; revising Departmental policy regarding allowable materials and access to technology; navigating legally complex labor/management issues (e.g., screening and testing, forming staff cohorts to limit virus spread); and making emergency funding rapidly available for all of these things, as well as for washing machines, changing facilities, quality food services, hotel rooms and other facilities, to support staff mental and physical health. The Department also needs to have emergency plans in place, in the event that staffing shortages become more acute; large numbers of prisoners become severely ill when local ICUs are already overloaded; fire season further degrades the quality of air in the housing units; or an earthquake isolates the institution for an extended period of time.

Tackling these types of projects requires deep familiarity with Departmental policies, as well as close collaboration with staff and administrators. Unfortunately, those communities and organizations that are typically most concerned about the wellbeing of incarcerated people are generally those least likely to be connected to the relevant professional networks. They are also the ones that people working in corrections are most likely to feel threatened by. Those organizations that do have strong contacts inside the world of corrections are often reluctant to openly address issues like living conditions. Other advocates are averse, either as a matter of principle or of public image, to the idea of engaging in a practical sense with prisons. Those who control the prisons and those who care about the people inside are traditionally conditioned to view each other as enemies.

One wonders what would happen if the world of corrections were not so isolated and distrustful of “outsiders,” and if it were subject to vastly more external oversight and accountability. Yet the refusal of large segments of the advocacy community to engage directly with incarcerated people—to, in a sense, look them in the eye, to recognize them as more than a remote, unfortunate abstraction—is a long-standing problem. And its already dire consequences are now escalating sharply.

But this failure to fully register currently incarcerated people as living human beings is not just a moral issue; it is also strategic. Incarcerated people are not only passive subjects of the system; they are also potentially extraordinary agents of change. This country’s greatest experts on systemic racism, as well as on police, prosecutorial, and judicial abuse, live in its prisons, and they are unparalleled advocates and witnesses. Tending to their wellbeing while also amplifying their voices—not just after they have survived incarceration—is an essential strategy for bringing about large-scale change.

At the end of April, the Prison University Project created two initiatives. The first was to distribute gift bags to all of the nearly 3,900 people incarcerated at San Quentin. Each one was packed in a gallon-sized Ziploc bag, filled with beef jerky, tuna fish, trail mix, a bar of soap, a small pad of paper, envelopes, stamps, pens (or pen fillers, for those in housing units where regular pens are not allowed), and three articles: Why Soap Works, by Ferris Jabr; The Pandemic is a Portal, by Arundhati Roy; and Five months on, what scientists now know about the Coronavirus; by Robin McKie. We also included a letter that explained the package.

The response from inside was unexpected and profound. Within days, we began receiving hundreds of thank-you letters. Some were from our students (who comprise about 10% of the overall San Quentin population); others came from the vast communities in Reception and on Death Row. With permission, we are sharing a small sample of those letters here. We intend to post more in the near future.

While everyone expressed appreciation for the package’s contents, the thing they stressed the most was the impact of the message it conveyed: There are people on the outside who are thinking of you, and who care. A lot of people described the actual emotional sensations of receiving it—and of realizing it was a gift for them; the way it changed the atmosphere of the whole housing unit, the sounds of joy on the tier. Some described how it transformed their mood, or even their sense of themselves as human. Others said it inspired them to be kind; gave them hope about the future; or strengthened their resolve to keep going. A handful shared artwork or poetry. Many had been in prison for decades. Some had not received mail or a package in years; a few never had. The enclosed articles contained the first information many had ever received on the science of COVID-19. Quite a number expressed gratitude on behalf of others in their unit, reminding us that some people we would not hear from because they cannot read or write.

Some people shared their fears about getting sick—especially those with serious medical conditions, or who are older. Many more expressed concerns about loved ones on the outside, and the frustration of not being able to be there for them. Others described their bleak living conditions—poor ventilation, barely any time outside, scarce cleaning supplies. Many requested reading materials, puzzles, legal information, or a pen pal. A significant number of people acknowledged CDCR’s efforts to prevent the spread of the virus, but also described the impossibility of social distancing, particularly in dorms or showers, and their fear and frustration about some staff’s inconsistent use of masks. People in Reception shared their extraordinary frustration with being stuck indefinitely in a housing unit with no TVs or radios, since COVID-19 had caused transfers to be indefinitely suspended.

Together, the letters provide remarkable testimony about what it is like to be in prison, especially right now—and not just materially, but psychologically. Most of the “public speaking” and outreach I’ve done since the letters began arriving has entailed my channeling what I’ve learned from them to the outside world. This is more or less a continuation of what my job has been like for the last twenty years, but now with some much higher stakes.

The other for-us unprecedented initiative we undertook in April, also with funding from an individual donor, and tremendous support from the San Quentin administration, was a food truck appreciation event for prison staff. Over the course of a single day, from five in the morning till eleven at night, several Mexican food trucks served burritos during each of the three shift changes to well over a thousand people.

At San Quentin, nearly half of all employees are medical workers and other non-custody staff. The rest are custody and administrators who work throughout the prison. Those on site right now are those who cannot work from home. Most come in sustained direct contact with other people there, and thus experience some level of at least potential exposure to COVID-19.

Over the course of the day, the long, wide stretch of pavement that overlooks the Bay on the way to the Count Gate was transformed into something faintly like a street fair. Second watch staff started arriving in the morning, when it was still dark; a steady stream heading towards the gate, lugging gear or water, some chatting, some with heads down. Throughout the day faces puzzled and then eventually brightened with a smile once they finally believed that the food really was there for them.

Most people who work at San Quentin commute long hours each way, often with van pools. Hundreds also live in trailers on or near prison grounds because there is virtually no affordable local housing. Most prison workers feel some degree of dread or danger about being at work; the pandemic is obviously compounding the physical and mental toll of the job beyond measure. At a time like this, it felt meaningful to be able to offer something so simple and positive. I wonder how the climate of the prison might change if staff—and everyone else—felt that taken care of every day.

As of this writing, we are working to arrange a similar pair of initiatives, this time at a prison in the Central Valley with over 4,000 incarcerated people, 1,000 staff, and a serious COVID-19 outbreak. Depending on our fundraising capacity, and the receptivity of other institutions, we hope to continue these efforts even further in the future.

For several weeks I hesitated to write about these projects, loath to turn bleak lessons about long-term exposure to extreme emotional and material deprivation and toxic stress into a feel-good story about us. But the intensely positive emotional responses to these initiatives illustrate vividly both the need and the opportunities that I urgently hope to convey. Both events also permanently altered my understanding of what it means for any act of goodwill to be effective, significant, or trivial, in a way that I hope will inspire others to do something, anything, rather than just standing by. They also strengthened my resolve to continue doing whatever we possibly can to provide material and emotional support to the entire community at San Quentin, as well as other institutions.

So we will continue… working to ensure that all incarcerated people and prison staff have plentiful access to personal protective equipment and supplies; facilitate the flow of information to the outside world about institutional conditions, needs, challenges, and solutions; foster productive dialogue and collaboration between diverse individuals and organizations; educate and advise journalists, policymakers, family members and other stakeholders; provide quality reading materials and other paper and video-based supplies for education, recreation, and health; support the research and program development efforts of funders; and organize resources in support of people who are now leaving prison during the pandemic.

Above all, we will do everything in our power to make heard the voices, and the vision, of our students and all the other people throughout the system, to mitigate as much as possible the harm of COVID-19, and to help the world understand that they are human beings whose lives have value.

Jody Lewen
Executive Director

Please note that the Prison University Project became Mount Tamalpais College in September 2020.

Dear friends,

I hope everyone is doing OK. I’m writing to share some further updates as we continue to try to figure out how we can best support our students and the larger community inside during this crisis.

As many of you know, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, we and other organizations and individuals in California and around the country have been working to bring about the release of the most medically vulnerable incarcerated people and/or others considered “low risk.” The goal is to reduce the risk to them, while also making it easier to control the spread of the virus inside by reducing overall population density.

Around the country, thousands of people have already been released from prisons and jails. While I am deeply heartened and hopeful about these sane, rational developments, I’m indescribably frustrated that it took a pandemic to bring them about. I’m also concerned about the adverse conditions that will confront those individuals being released and those charged with supporting their transition.

Even in the best of times, reentry is a taxing and complex process. Right now, even picking someone up at the gate or meeting with them face-to-face is hardly an option. Today, many transitional houses are either full or closed to intake; service providers are working from home and either scaling back or shuttering their operations. Essential offices like the DMV and Social Security are closed—and without an ID it’s impossible to get a job.

Family members, friends, and organizations that provide housing to new arrivals will not only need space for them to hunker down indefinitely during the shelter-in-place period; they’ll need the capacity to quarantine them for their first 14 days out. New arrivals will also need financial support for the foreseeable future. In many cases, they will have acute medical needs—including, conceivably, health issues related to COVID-19. Those who physically interact with new arrivals to support their reentry will need to have the skills and resources to do so safely, given the risk for all parties of contagion.

Hopefully everyone advocating for mass releases is working just as hard to develop adequate housing for these folks when they arrive home. But even if this can be arranged, what will become of the overwhelming majority of incarcerated people who remain inside the institutions? While even a 20% reduction of the overall prison population would create some much-needed space, it would not produce the medical personnel or material resources sufficient to care for everyone inside, in the event that rates of infection and severity of illness are comparable to what is occurring in the outside population—and they are likely to be much worse.

I am obviously not arguing against evacuating as many people as possible; nor am I suggesting that all of these efforts will be in vain. However, from both a public health and humanitarian perspective, these steps will not mitigate the catastrophic lethality of the system’s very design. Even living in the midst of a pandemic, I personally am safer from illness and death than the average incarcerated person is on an “ordinary” day. None of these steps will change that reality. Especially not right now.

Yet much of the criminal justice-related advocacy work being organized in response to this crisis seems to sidestep the reality that over two million people in the U.S. will experience the devastation of this pandemic from inside prisons and jails. While clearly concerned about the broader issues, most advocates and institutional philanthropists, including those that ordinarily value agility, responsiveness, and innovation, seem unable to engage with the question of what they could do right now to avert a massive loss of human life. Instead, many remain hyper-focused on long-term goals like decarceration, and the gratification of legislative “big wins,” apparently unwilling or unable to respond simultaneously to an impending humanitarian disaster.

Perhaps the situation is too overwhelming to even think about. Prisons are epidemiological tinderboxes. A huge percentage of incarcerated people are elderly and/or have serious existing medical conditions; maintaining physical distance from others in a 100-person dorm, or in a double-bunked cell block, or in a chow hall is impossible; simply keeping one’s hands clean can be a huge challenge. Hand sanitizer is considered contraband in most prisons because of its alcohol content. Prison medical staffing levels, space and equipment are entirely inadequate for an institution-wide disaster—much less a statewide, national, or global one. The vast majority of prisons rely on outside hospitals to provide specialized or acute care, including for respiratory problems. Maybe the only mental response we can muster is the impulse to remove people to safety.

Still, we must imagine the situation when the virus spreads inside, and outside hospitals are already overwhelmed. From Friday to Saturday alone, the number of patients in intensive care in California rose from 200 to 410. What will happen in the coming days and weeks, when more and more incarcerated people become ill, prison staffing levels begin to drop, and both custody and medical staff become increasingly exhausted and frightened, if not ill?

We must ask: what can we do right now to minimize the risk of illness and death to both incarcerated people and to staff? How do we help impede the spread of illness? What do those running the prisons require to keep people safe? How can we prepare incarcerated people for the reality that they and/or others around them may become seriously ill, in many cases with no access to medical care? How can we protect those with severe mental illness or disabilities? How can we help everyone involved cope with justifiable feelings of fear, anger, and frustration, so that despair does not descend and ultimately convert to violence? How can we prevent the catastrophic scenario in which hundreds of people are sick and dying in their cells and dorms, and staff are no longer reporting to work?

I have spent the last few weeks asking these questions of prison staff, administrators, formerly incarcerated people, and other colleagues. Regarding staff, most answers focus on having access to personal protective equipment and other hygiene supplies (gloves, masks, sanitizer, soap, paper towels); ensuring their needs and concerns are heard; and knowing that people around them are aware of what they are going through, and supporting them. Staff also need practical support ensuring that they are not carrying the virus home to their families. To address this concern, and to minimize their driving while exhausted (particularly now that van pools are problematic, and given how far many live from their institutions), we should be booking local hotel rooms for them now. This would be particularly prudent, given that staffing shortages will likely require many to work overtime. They can also use healthy snacks, space to rest or change their clothes before leaving work, and anything else that might allow them to decompress.

To support currently incarcerated people: everyone needs plentiful access to soap, sanitizer, toilet paper, masks, adequate nutritious food, paper and stamps, gloves, as well as regular access to yard and showers. All of these supplies should be distributed for free, rather than sold through canteen—particularly given that lockdowns and “modified programs” mean the cancelation of most jobs, which means people are unable to earn the money they need to purchase such essentials. Many family members who might ordinarily send money are likely also experiencing extreme economic distress as a result of the abrupt elimination of so many jobs on the outside.

Everyone inside also needs accurate, accessible information about the virus itself and how to avoid contagion. In addition, they need medical information about the progression of COVID-19, and advice on how to care for themselves and others in the event that they become ill and are without professional medical support. The institutions must also plan for the possibility that as staffing drops below critical levels, those who are incarcerated may need to maintain basic, life-preserving operations by themselves until help is available. They should prepare now to distribute cell phones.

One piece of good news that I have to share is that at San Quentin, the Warden, the Chief Medical Officer, and the CCPOA Chapter President are exceptionally dedicated and competent people. With adequate resources, I believe they have the capacity to create a model for how to mitigate the impending disaster—before we finally address the horrific dysfunction of the system itself.

As an organization we are now working to help ensure that all necessary supplies and resources are available to both the incarcerated community and staff, and to make sure that everyone knows that they are not forgotten and will not be abandoned. In spite of their radically different positions, in a certain sense the fates of incarcerated people and prison staff are now bound together. The only way to help one group is to help everyone. But all of this needs to happen now; we are out of time.

—Jody Lewen, Executive Director

Please note that the Prison University Project became Mount Tamalpais College in September 2020.

Dear friends,

I’m writing to share some updates regarding the current COVID-19 crisis as it pertains to our community at San Quentin and beyond.

As many of you know, last week we made the painful decision to suspend all programming at San Quentin, in order to eliminate our risk of carrying the virus into the prison. Conducting classes online is not an option, as there is no internet access within the prison. Continuing by correspondence would pose insurmountable logistical challenges, as well as sacrifices to quality inconsistent with our core commitments to students. For now, we are focused on basic issues of health and safety, and hope to address questions related to course and degree completion as soon as we’re able.

For the time being, staff are working from home, focusing on the various tasks and larger picture/bigger project work that can still be accomplished remotely. Thanks to technology, we should all continue to be reachable in all the usual ways.

Until a few days ago, we were planning to have a single staff member go into the prison each day, but like everyone else, our sense of what is appropriate or feasible is rapidly evolving. At this moment, we are taking things one day at a time. We are hoping at the very least to ensure that students are receiving accurate information about the crisis, and also know that we remain deeply committed to their wellbeing. Ideally, it will also become possible to ensure that students have plenty of reading materials to occupy them for the duration. Our options in this regard will depend very much on how overwhelmed prison staff are, and their ability to assist.

As those of you who have firsthand experience in this field are aware, it is extraordinarily distressing for faculty and staff to lose all access to students, particularly in the midst of such an extreme medical crisis, with no way to communicate, much less support them. Students rely on school for a sense of connection, community, purpose, and routine, and we are concerned about how a prolonged disruption, combined with so much fear, isolation, and uncertainty, will impact individuals, as well as the whole social climate, not just at San Quentin but throughout the system as a whole.

If you would like to send a few words of support to students, please email us at info@staging.prisonuniversityproject.flywheelsites.com, with the subject heading, “Message to Students.” We will do our very best to share these messages inside, as soon as we are able.

At this time, as the crisis continues to escalate, we are now focusing our attention on how we can best work with all available partners to deploy our knowledge, networks and resources to keep everyone who is living and working inside the prison system as safe and healthy as possible.

Above all, we are concerned about the humanitarian disaster that may occur when a COVID-19 outbreak starts inside. As of this writing, there are no confirmed cases of COVID-19 inside the California prison system. However, once this does happen, it will be extraordinarily difficult to contain. The Department does not have enough health care workers to treat, or space to quarantine, all those who would likely be affected. It is also not clear what will happen if, in the event of an outbreak, large numbers of prison staff, out of fear, or because they have been directly impacted, stop reporting to work.

For this reason, an increasing number of individuals and organizations are now seeking ways to release and/or divert from the entire system those people who are most medically vulnerable. Community groups working inside and outside of the system, as well as leadership from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, the Office of the Receiver that oversees medical care for CDCR, and within the Governor’s Office, are all working hard to develop strategies that could be implemented quickly. Witnessing the sense of urgency, personal responsibility, and willingness to collaborate among these diverse groups is reminding me of the importance of distinguishing between the individuals who work within a system and the system itself. Above all, no single individual or entity has the power to avert or mitigate such a crisis alone.

Some resources related to these efforts are at the end of this letter. If successful, hundreds if not thousands of medically vulnerable people will be returning home in the midst of a pandemic, and they will all need housing, financial support, and other supportive services. A vast amount of rapid, advance planning is going to be essential. Supporting organizations that provide reentry services (such as Bonafide, Root & Rebound, and the Anti-Recidivism Coalition) will thus be especially critical during this time.

As throughout the world, many of the prison-related issues that this pandemic is raising are not unique to this specific event; rather, the crisis is bringing long-standing problems into relief. I hope this moment will ultimately launch a much larger public conversation about the vast number of elderly and medically fragile people incarcerated in the U.S; the widespread lack of adequate medical services, and emergency preparedness; the extreme unsanitary conditions (including the scarcity of sinks with water and soap); the poor nutrition; toxic levels of stress; sleep deprivation; exposure to violence; lack of exercise; poor air quality/ventilation; and overcrowded living conditions—precisely those factors that compromise immune-health and make it impossible to protect people from infectious disease.

I hope we finally ask ourselves what it means that we continue to sequester hundreds of thousands of people—often for decades—in squalid, degrading conditions where staying home, washing one’s hands, and social distancing are painfully unattainable goals.

Our work at the Prison University Project is of course only a small piece of this puzzle. Nevertheless, we hope that through all of our work we may somehow leverage this disaster, in order to bring about some large-scale positive change.

With deep gratitude for your support,

Jody Lewen
Executive Director

Letter to Governor Newsom from CA organizations

Interview with Homer Venters in The New Yorker

Opinion piece in The New York Times by Emily Bazelon

Article in the Chicago Sun Times

The Justice Collaborative’s  “COVID Response and Resources”

Prison Policy Initiative’s “Responses to the COVID-19 pandemic”

National Institute of Corrections Coronavirus Information

Please note that the Prison University Project became Mount Tamalpais College in September 2020.